


you got it made with the guy in shades (oh no)

by tatterdemalionAmberite (amberite)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drugs, Humans on Alternia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, Meet-Cute, Romantic Comedy, Roommates, SBAHJ-typical cartoon violence, a lil bit of body horror, background/past Daverezi, filmmaker!Dave, in particular one (1) very fake baby-eating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:26:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite/pseuds/tatterdemalionAmberite
Summary: You're not fazed at all. Nope. Cool as a cucumber. Those fangs don't make you feel nervous at all or weird in the pit of your stomach in a way that you theoretically stopped worrying about the gayness of last sweep. He licks at them with his forked tongue."Haven't you," CRONCH, "theen a troll eating before," Sollux asks, and laughs his weird swallowed-down nasal chuckle.~~~Giftfic for QuerulousArtisan, written for#homestuckve18.





	you got it made with the guy in shades (oh no)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [querulousArtisan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/querulousArtisan/gifts).



> Because how even does sleep work, this is being posted in two chapters, second to appear within a few days. (This meets the length requirements, but I didn't want to half-ass the smut part.) Happy Valentine's day!
> 
> My thanks to TitianArchivist for moral support and assistance with Terezi-wrangling.

Your name is Dave Strider, and that's weird enough in itself in these parts. 

Half of the time when you have to fill out a form with it, it rejects the character count. One time, it decided that must be a misspelled title and you still get email addressed to Dav [Honorific] Striderr. And you've lost count of the number of times trolls have assumed your propensity for casual insult was a flirtation. 

But none of this is all that bad, compared to living with your brother in the human quarter. It's not like strifing randomly never _happens_ , here downtown where the sun doesn't even penetrate through the levels of the metroplex - but most of the trolls prone to pulling that shit think that humans are soft, and it doesn't take very much effort to make them aware that you're not low-effort prey. 

Plus they love your off-the-wall little film projects. You're not even sure why, exactly, but someone reviewed your sense of humor as "an exacting and complete refutation of traditional Altalternian sensibilities" in a local online rag and ever since then you've been filling up the tiny clubs where you run your projector. 

It still doesn't translate to that much money when you have to eat, sleep and keep making them, but whatever. 

This is why you keep winding up with a string of absurd blockmates. The last one was a sopor-eating cerulean kid who skipped town without telling you and left half their stuff. So you posted an ad:

hey so if you like video games and dont mind living with a human i got a sick deal for you, cupe + block + facilities access, 40 caegars a perigee 

i mean obviously humans can answer this ad too im just not expecting any because of the neighborhood

the last troll who lived here left their video gaming rig. its a hornet 612 with virtualizers, adjustable horn gear, you name it. ive played around with it a few times but its clear there is a level of poweruser beyond mortal ken who could probably appreciate this thing more. its yours for the price of double rent the first perigee because guess what else my last blockmate did 

you: doesnt mind my weird hours or weird film projects, doesnt mind a really small respiteblock, chill about fridge access, no random strifing (with me. if you want to do that with your kismesis then just keep it out of my space) 

oh shit i guess the fridge thing is a pun that im going to retroactively pretend i meant even though my sense of humor is usually less straightforward than that 

~~

It isn't long before replies start rolling in. Three trolls typing in shades of purple who just want to buy the game machine - you guess this one is rare? And they're offering good money, too, but you don't feel like you want to go with that right away. You're convinced that the sort of person who'd really _appreciate_ this thing is also the sort of person who's likely to stick around a bit longer and that might save you trouble in the future. 

And, who are you kidding, it's a fucking nice console, and even if you don't have horns to appreciate all of the VR sensory elements, you'll retain access that way. 

Another couple of replies express interest in the uninhabited respiteblock, but they're asking about features that don't remotely exist in this hivestem, much less the cheapest tier of hive in it. And then there's one that catches your eye, in mustard yellow:

TA: 2o ii2 iit open riight now liike twoniight?   
TA: iim pretty 2ure ii can fiit iin a 2pace of any 2iize, youre not allergiic two bee2 are you?  
TA: the bee2 arent actually here wiith me yet 2o dont paniic iif that2 not your bag, ii can deal wiithout them e2peciially iif iim allowed two modiify that con2ole. 

TG: ok im not gonna lie i have no idea what youre talking about with the bees but im willing to give you a shot

You press send and a message the troll must have been typing at the same time appears on your screen:

TA: iim 2ure ii 2ound liike a real great blockmate already, niice goiing 2ollux way two make iit compliicated. 

followed by,

TA: waiit really? 

TG: yeah like, you sound like a better fit than all these dudes asking if there's sopor plumbing and shit.   
TG: imagine some fucking seadweller showing up in here like "but where is my concierge pail drone" and im like "sorry mang all i got is human soporifics, tv dinners and intentionally shitty movies"   
TG: note that i dont actually know if concierge pail drones are a thing but just go with it ok 

TA: ....  
TA: i dont thiink 2o, but ii wouldnt be 2urprii2ed iif the la2t 2eadweller ii 2poke two expected them anyway, 2o you have a poiint there.  
TA: anyway iim on my way over.

TG: uh  
TG: dont you need the address?

TA: you 2hould probably fiix the metadata 2ecuriity 2ettiing2 iin the palmtop you u2e two run your trolliian app.

 

By the time you've figured out how to do that, he's let himself into the building and is knocking on the door.

~~

Things about Sollux that you learn on the first night: He's a hacker, not a stalker. (There _is_ a difference, and it makes a lot of difference to you.) He transfers the rent from an anonymous cryptocurrency account. His glasses are cooler than yours, mostly because his eyes match them. His full hatchname is Sollux Captor. He can trounce you in literally every video game you've tried so far.

He's made of twigs and lightning, as far as you can tell, and mostly lightning. After three hours of fucking around with the Hornet, he wobbles and almost passes out when he stands back up, but says he's fine. He demolishes instant grubnoodles faster than you can cook them.

"Dude, I think you ate those in negative time," you tell him. "You might want to consider harnessing the power of your stomach as a time machine." 

"Jutht what I need, more bullshit thpecial abilitieth people are thirthty for," he grumbles, and doesn't elaborate, but you remember some of the rumors you've heard about his bloodcaste. There's an awkward apology halfway to your mouth but he says, "-Anyway, ith there more?" before you can get the words out.

"Help yourself any time," you say. 

He levitates himself to the nutrition block and starts eating them straight out of the package. 

"Okay, I gotta ask, is this what you usually do? No judging here, I'm just trying to calculate our grocery budget."

"I have money," he says, in between snapping off blocks of noodles with his double set of fangs. "Well, I can _get_ money." 

"K, cool." You're not fazed by this at all. Nope. Cool as a cucumber. Those fangs don't make you feel nervous at all or weird in the pit of your stomach in a way that you theoretically stopped worrying about the gayness of last sweep. He licks at them with his forked tongue. 

"Haven't you," CRONCH, "theen a troll eating before," Sollux asks, and laughs his weird swallowed-down nasal chuckle, _ehehehe._

~~ 

Things about Sollux that you learn in the next few nights:

His appetite calms down to being roughly double yours. He answers questions sometimes bluntly, sometimes cryptically and sometimes not at all. It doesn't bother him if you sit around in boxer shorts but he never takes his shirt off. You're an earlier riser than most trolls, but he never seems to be asleep. 

The bees are some kind of biocomputing scheme, and he's left them with a friend. He's left a _lot_ of things "with a friend". All you've seen him bring in so far is the contents of his backpack, and, true to his word, several grocery and hot food deliveries. He doesn't leave the building very much, but assures you he's doing some sort of lucrative work on his husktop. 

"I've got a film showing this morning at Daywalkers," you tell him one evening. "You should come." 

Sollux shrugs. "It thoundth like fun," he says.

It doesn't occur to you that he didn't mean he would _actually come_ until you're at the club with your equipment, scanning the audience by the light of your projector, and you don't see the outline of his horns anywhere. 

A carved dragon snout is suddenly digging into your ribs from behind you in the cubicle where you've set up your equipment; you startle, then relax. "Why the glumface, coolkid?" Terezi Pyrope is saying in your ear. It occurs to you that having glasses that are cooler than yours is practically becoming a cliche of… whatever constitutes your circle of associates. 

"My new blockmate was supposed to be here - okay, I convinced myself he was supposed to be here, and was looking forward to showing him this shit." 

"'Blockmate,' huh? My sniffnodes are sensing subtext!" When you turn around, Terezi is grinning at a spot a few inches to the right of your face.

"...oh come on now, I got him from a Trollslist ad," you protest.

"And that's a very convincing argument that he's not your concupiscent interest - except it isn't!" she says.

She's kind of got you there. "Anyway," you tell her firmly, "it's a moot point, I'm pretty sure _he's_ not interested." 

"And what evidence do you bring before us today?" Pyrope grins harder, her eyebrows climbing. Troll eyebrows do this thing that human eyebrows can't.

"Well, for starters, he's not _here_."

"He could just be… reclusive and mysterious." Those eyebrows waggle. She's got you there.

"Are you sure you haven't been spying on my hive?" 

"Define _spying_ ," she says. 

"Sticking your sniffnodes into things."

"Always!" She demonstrates by picking up your drink and sticking her sniffnodes into that. "Very red, also tropical," she says, approvingly, and takes a gulp of it. 

You can't complain; she got you this gig, and the drink was on the house. You complain anyway, mock-offended. "Now it's got Terezi cooties." 

"You've had those for a while," she says, and she's got you there, too. 

~~

You're in a pleasant state of mind when you walk home through filtered sunlight and put in your door code, the snub mostly soothed by a clubful of laughing trolls and by the rest of the drink (and the second one she brought you, which was even more red and tropical, somehow.) 

Sollux is sprawled out on the couch, watching something on his husktop and laughing his nasal laugh, delighted at whatever it is. You feel a petty spike of jealousy at whatever he's watching, which is totally not a thing you should bother him with, he's your blockmate and doesn't owe you anything -

It's some - security camera footage? There's something oddly familiar - 

You take a few steps into the livingblock and see exactly what it is.

You blink at him, nonplussed. "Okay, did Terezi put you up to this or -"

"I can tap into thecurity camera feedth on my own, thank you very much," he says indignantly. On the screen of his husktop Hellaa Jjefff swallows a crudely drawn, jpeg-artifacted grub in one bite and the dayclub crowd you were projecting for an hour ago roars. Sollux bursts out laughing louder than you've heard him laugh ever yet.

He likes it. You're leaning over the side of the couch behind him watching the screen and grinning and your face is hot and you're officially blaming it on the drink but who the fuck are you kidding. 

"...you didn't ask who Terezi was," you realize.

"Guilty ath charged," Sollux quips, in a tone that would confirm he knows her, even if he wasn't already saying so.

Why are you not surprised that the excessively canny trolls with glasses cooler than yours have something to do with each other? You need cooler glasses. Or something. Maybe if you had cooler glasses you wouldn't be suddenly tongue-tied, watching the fine threads of red-blue energy dance around his horns. 

On the screen the characters explode into fractals of badly encoded images and the end credits start to roll, over an operatic aria sung by Geromy. Sollux snickers and starts clapping. You're not sure if it's earnest or ironic clapping but the point of your work is that there isn't really a difference. 

"Why go to all this trouble?" you ask. "Why not just go to the club and watch it on the big screen?" 

Sollux shrugs. "Maybe I'm jutht a big nerd who doethn't get out much." But there's something prickly and nervous about his voice. Before you can press further, he turns his head to look at you directly, grinning. Wisps of light drift out from behind his glasses. You're aware that you're still blushing. You're also suddenly aware of something else: 

If he knows Terezi that well, then he knows you've slept with a troll before.


End file.
